“One man’s whistleblower is another woman’s criminal hacker. Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., is calling the leaked e-mails from climate scientists at a British university research unit a ‘theft’ and ‘crime’ that should be investigated, despite calls from Republicans to investigate the contents of the e-mails themselves, not the way they were leaked. ‘You call it Climate-gate. I call it E-mail-theft-gate,’ Boxer said at a hearing Wednesday on the Committee on Environment and Public Works, which she chairs. She suggested that a criminal conspiracy might even be at play in bringing the once private e-mails to public light.” [editor’s note: Umm … Forest … trees? She’s probably correct, but does that make the revelations (of widespread outright fraud) any less horrific? Seems more Woodward/Bernstein than malicious hackers? - SAT] (12/03/09)